It's your fault, and Arb's, that I am into my fifth month...seriously. The month in Australia I took only CREAM; came back and other than making sure the 1970 RTs disks that arrived "sounded okay", I have not listened since ~15 May (when I left). Hmmm--that's ironic: May 70 show, May 2010 stoppage...

Unlike you all that have such broad musical interests, I am far too obsessive, and I think the four yrs since I arrived here, listening EVERY day, I just burned myself out.

Thought I'd burned out chatting with you all, but I hadn't; nor had I burned out talking about the DEAD, more in a social sense really, but yep--the music is on the back burner for a while...not sure how long.

Before I was ever on this Forum, I took a long break from the Dead, partly as all my old tapes had fallen apart and I was kind of tired of the studio albums (except the first one, which I always went back to).

Then I discovered Archive, replaced all my old tapes of favorite shows, and was off and running again...

Yeah, in a way that's sorta scary...I put away the tapes and all, even gave away the late 70s early albums, and by mid 80s, was "done" with the DEAD. Then, when JG passed, I broke out enough to make an "All Jerry" tape mix, played that for a few yrs now and again, but it wasn't til 05 that two things happend: I saw TFTV and was impressed with the "two suites" (again, I had no idea what they did with them between 68-69; without the web, we in the 70s had very little real understanding of the early DEAD--we knew NO one that could tell us what they played, etc.), and then here...

Pt being, I happily left them for yrs and yrs, and maybe I am on another hiatus of that sort?

I've been talking to Cyril Jordan and his band mates, pals, it seems they like or prefer the jams the Airplane did, I kept quiet... that the Dead rehearsed a lot of the great jams they did.Jorma and friends were great yet my GD favorites, in particular New Potato Caboose and Born Cross Eyed, hold upm as pure genius, even if they were figured out in essence before being performed, I can't get them out of my mind... Dark Star and all that... yeuch. Sorry Palao and all you faithful lovers of the Other One (yeccch)What ARE the words to Born Cross-Eyed anyway? I'd really like to know... but the mystery of it is better than the truth anyway, but no offense meant.

There's a track by The Decemberists that starts with the opening chord from Morning Dew, wow... a girl screams (on the CD) and then that track by The Decemberists goes south.

Hey now... cudos to the Standells SF gig last week - they played good garage rock, but couldn't sway a few old time ('70s-'90s) dead heads in the audience (who might have enjoyed the psych of "All Fall Down" by The Standells, had they stayed to watch the last encore).

William Tell,You're right, that 12-29-68 Other One kicks! I was out of my head to dismiss The Other One out of hand... it does make a great anthem for the band and The Magic Trip recently release doc on the Further Bus (but not having seen it, is it true they chose "Truckin'" as the official anthem of the era?).

Mainly, I like fast Grateful Dead stuff... complex and either punk (Cream Puff War, Golden Road To Unlimited Devotion, early Cold Rain And Snow) or psych (New Potato Caboose, Born Cross-Eyed [what are the lyrics to Born Cross-Eyed?) China Cat Sunflower... those are the ones I return to.No, no I love that hook on The Other One, "...Comin'...you know it's comin'... comin' around..." and the eternal drum beat... done done duh duh done done...! Almost as good as two shaves and a haircut... maybe better!

Hey to Arbuthnot and all you other '66 freaks (you know who you are!)

The attached pics - me and girlfriends the night after going to The Carousel Ballroom; Crypt-keeper wearing familiar attire, and my pop in '68 paying dues at SF State.Busted!